ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

‘I was the child of the survivors of the Holocaust.’ With that, Roz Rothstein of the activist group Stand With Us that hopes to transform the image of Israel on US campuses sets the moral authority before a small audience at an office on Howard Street, San Francisco. One can, she explains, disagree with Israel, but there are ‘limits’ to such doubting behavior. Exceeding those limits constitutes the gravest sort of anti-Semitism. As people devour the food and drink put on by the associates of Blumberg Capital, serious politics is being discussed. ‘We are being demonized,’ she insists. Whether she means Israel, Jews or Jews in the US is hard to tell. Presumably, no true distinction is intended.

The gathering teams with Republicans, many of them competing with each other for various posts in upcoming elections. Candidates who are going to be competing for House positions are also there including John Dennis who hopes to undermine Nancy Pelosi. The room smells of political hustling and over-eager libidos.

All are, however, there for one reason: defending Israel. Israel is besieged, the David in a sea of overly keen Goliaths. A good deal of agitprop is necessary to convince the audience, and perhaps the speakers, of this bizarre scenario. Pro-Palestinian groups are swarming across American campuses attacking Jews and pro-Israeli students alike. The UN is ‘obsessed’ with Israel and prefers, we are told, not to look at the stain of character on other states. One must be on the look out for the ‘Three Ds’ suggested by Natan Sharansky. (The speakers intone this in irritating fashion – we are in a kindergarten of ideological instruction. Remember ‘demonization’, ‘double standards’ and ‘delegitimization’, for one.)

The language merchants are busy attempting to find the right good to sell. ‘We must be out there to counter our enemies.’ Evidently, the Gaza dead, with their galvanic properties must be astonishingly good at public relations – they are, it would seem, the ignoble savages who dare speak from their status as the deceased.

The campaign being waged is yet another indication of how the Israeli lobby, so peevishly dismissed by Israeli supporters as non-existent, arises with effective force when fear is packaged and retailed in this faux salon manner. These are the first people who would insist that such a thing is anathema, only to then gather their forces and funds to effectively provide assistance to a foreign power. Young, well-groomed men listening intently will be doing service at some point with the Israeli Army, a problematic situation given mixed allegiances. The framers of the US constitution would have had something to say about that.

What is most striking in this display is the rehearsed language of doom. (We are ‘besieged’, a ‘well planned tsunami’ is being put into place, argues Rothstein.) The Palestinians do not exist except in the negative, a dark eminence with Satanic overtones. Hamas, a body once supported by Israel for Machiavellian purposes, is not a force that can or should be dealt with other than through force. Beware their Charter.

It all comes down to ‘information’. ‘They do not know the information,’ explains Dr. Michael Harris, who was a founder of San Francisco Voice for Israel before it became the San Francisco chapter for Stand With Us. So, with this in mind, a packet is distributed, bulging with fascinating ‘facts’ rendered on glossy paper. How far it will go is not something these agitprop peddlers make clear.

A brief summary of what is on show then. A booklet entitled ‘Middle East: Apartheid Today’ is designed to focus on Arab and Muslim prejudice (murderous ‘gender apartheid’ is practiced amongst the Palestinians). ‘We don’t do apartheid in the Holy Land’. South African apartheid is also singled out as spectacular, singular and totally different from Israeli policies. And besides, many want to leave Islam – they want to assimilate, to become like ‘us’.

There are pictures of hanged men from Iran reproduced in distributed booklets showing homosexuality to be a capital offence in that benighted part of the world. (Would Orthodox Jews disagree with such treatment, one wonders.) In short, the apartheid fiends, the promoters of segregation, sexually motivated crimes, honor killings and institutionalized racism, lie outside Israel’s sacred, threatened borders. Instead, focus is directed on such things as ‘Israel’s gift to the world’ on a card that speaks about its ‘Intel laptops’ and ‘mobile phone technology’ amongst other things.

On the coattails of doom is that of self-praise. No one would hate us if they knew how humanitarian we really were. An example is adduced: the hospital in Haiti, emphasized in the publication ‘Israeli Heroes in Haiti’. This gesture, it seems, rinses guilt and cheers the consciences. Far better to build hospitals in Haiti than Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis is all too real. The mantras are almost hypnotic, and said with repeated, mechanical hollowness: ‘We are the glowing light in the Middle East’. This is the Winthrop covenant of the Holy Land, Americans who have confused Israel with the ‘light on the hill’ and a puritan assertion of exceptionality, and would prefer to be there than in San Francisco. (Dare one ask?)

The questions posed by the anesthetized audience are variously comical and absurd in their businesslike approach. A political candidate for the twelfth district in San Francisco suggests a screenwriter for an appropriate film to display Israel on American campuses in a good light. Another suggests ‘feel good’ images that re-enforce notions of the genteel Jew. ‘Cuddly, yes, cuddly and warm.’ Things are getting rather slippery here, and the hold on reality, if it was ever there, is now being lost. Another suggests that Israel is ‘the canary in the coal mine.’ An announcement of thanks is made to the speakers: an anonymous donor has just penned a cheque for an undisclosed sum running into the thousands. Money for jam. This place, presumably a refuge from the coalmine, is an asylum of unreality. And one is simply happy to leave it.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and is currently in San Francisco. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

What Michael Chabon was doing was much more subtle. Realizing he had no way of rationally or legally defending Israel’s violent takeover of unarmed civilian ships in the dead of night in international waters, the utterly preventable killing of nine civilians, and the kidnapping of hundreds more activists and theft of their ships and belongings, he instead resorted to the last refuge of the apologist: Dithering.

If you haven’t read the article, here’s the gist: Jews are very clever, but only anti-Semites believe Jews are so clever that they don’t make mistakes now and then. Israel was a little blockheaded when it came to this whole flotilla thing, but that’s OK, nobody’s perfect.

He says nothing about the need for an independent international investigation, much less any censure of Israel for its ‘blockheadedness.’ The victims of Israel’s behavior—the besieged people of Gaza, the families of the Turks killed and wounded, the thousands of Palestinians rotting in Israeli jails on political or fabricated charges—merit not a mention, apparently unworthy of the subterranean stream of pity he has for the lone Israeli combatant held by Palestinians or even of his condescending pity for the Turkish victims (whom he churlishly calls “the wasted dead with their cargo of lumber and delusions”).

Chabon’s self-involved dithering is one of many methods of taking the spotlight off Israel’s actions and responsibilities when the truth begins to cut too close to home. Another is the old stand-by, changing the subject to China’s repression of Tibet or Saudi Arabia’s repression of women and accusing of anti-Semitism anyone who dares ‘single out’ Israel when other people are doing bad things, too.

As Desmond Tutu said, “Divestment from apartheid South Africa was certainly no less justified because there was repression elsewhere on the African continent.” If global citizens can band together to right a wrong, it’s a positive thing, even if they can’t simultaneously right every other wrong in the world, too. No car thief has ever, as far as I know, been acquitted after saying, “But other people steal cars and get away with it all the time!”

We can ignore Israel’s crimes, which we are complicit in, and talk about the crimes of others instead. But this would make us dictionary-definition hypocrites.

Other apologists insist things are too complicated for anyone without a PhD in Middle Eastern studies to work out for herself, so we should remain ‘neutral.’ On the face of it, this sounds reasonable. It’s a sign of evolved rationality not to act too quickly, to learn as much as you can before taking a leap. This conflict is anything but simple, and our media paints a dim and largely one-sided picture that most Americans can’t make much sense of.

Still, it has never been easier to find ample evidence of Israeli violations of international law that cannot be explained or justified on security grounds, and to see that Israel is virtually never held accountable by any impartial legal system. Which means that being ‘neutral’ in this case is a bit like being ‘neutral’ during Jim Crow days. Under the system at the time, the courts and the media were anything but neutral, and white people were virtually guaranteed of getting away with discriminating against or even killing black people, no matter the circumstances.

The siege of Gaza, for example, is an act of collective punishment, which is manifestly illegal and, as many Israeli analysts have pointed out, only strengthens Hamas. Judge Goldstone’s report on Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza in early 2009 that killed 1,400 people, including over 300 children, is available on the world wide web. The International Court of Justice ruled the route of Israel’s Wall built on Palestinian land illegal in 2004, yet Israel continues to build wherever it pleases. Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are constantly threatened with demolition while Jewish settlements nearby go up at breakneck speed in an open attempt to ‘Judaize’ the occupied eastern half of the city.

These were just a few outrages that came to mind first, with thousands more crowding behind them in plain sight. Ignorance is no longer a valid excuse for inaction.

No amount of dithering can mask the fact that Israel illegally boarded civilian boats in international waters on May 31, killed nine people, and kidnapped 600 more in waters where they had no jurisdiction. No amount of whataboutery can hide the fact that Israel engages in ethnic cleansing when it tears down Palestinian neighborhoods to build Jewish ones. No amount of ‘easing the blockade of Gaza’ can gloss over the fact that Israel’s control over an entire civilian population—the occupation itself—is intolerable. Even the West Bank, which for strategic reasons Israel has been treating better than Gaza, knows everything can crumble in a second at the whim of Israel.

Nicholas Kristof put it plainly in the New York Times: “The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and costly to the country’s image. But one more blunt truth must be acknowledged: the occupation is morally repugnant.”

In the face of these bare truths, it’s natural for supporters of Israel’s government to resort to dithering, changing the subject, or fatuously claiming ‘neutrality’ while our country arms Israel, provides it with preferential trade relations, and protects it from international law. These are the only defenses they have left.

It’s our job not to let them get away with it. Silence, in this case, is complicity. As we speak, on our watch, good people are dying and millions more are living without basic freedoms. Doing nothing effectively supports the status quo of allowing Israel’s government to operate with impunity in our name.

If you have a chance, however small, to boycott or divest from companies that profit from the occupation or events that effectively whitewash the occupation, take it. It’s already having an effect, and it’s one of the few effective non-violent ways to make the occupation more costly to Israel than ending the occupation, as long as American and European governments apply no sanctions and enforce no laws.

Next time Israel guns down civilians, bombs a UN compound, or destroys a Palestinian neighborhood, don’t be shy about demanding swift action, impartial international investigations, and accountability. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s ‘too complicated’ for a mere mortal like you to know enough to follow your conscience on the anti-Apartheid struggle of our generation.

Pamela Olson doubts she can convince the unconvinced with one short article. To that end, she is writing a book called Fast Times in Palestine, which seeks to relieve the burden (and excuse) of ignorance in a way that is comprehensive, enjoyable, and universally-accessible.

In a remarkable interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Republican Leader John Boehner explicitly called for cutting Social Security in order to pay for the war in Afghanistan. The article reports:

“Ensuring there’s enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country’s entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he’d favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them.”

In principle Boehner gave the Democrats as much ammunition as a serious political party could want. After all raising the retirement age and cutting Social Security benefits to pay for the war in Afghanistan is an idea that consistently polls in the high single decimals. We should expect every Democratic politician in the country to be jumping up and down demanding to know whether the Republican leader speaks for all Republicans.

That would be the case, unless of course the Democrats actually hold similar views. After all, several prominent Democrats have been saying in public recently that we will have to cut Social Security benefits (benefits workers have already paid for). These prominent Democrats also support the war in Afghanistan.

So, they may not use the same words as Mr. Boehner, but it seems that many Democrats may effectively agree that we have to cut Social Security to pay for the war in Afghanistan. It would be nice if they would insist that this is not true.

“As it happens, I was e-mailing yesterday with the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Barham Salih, and I mentioned Greenwald’s critique.”

Goldberg’s contact with Barham Salih represents what is now one of the few tattered survivals of Israel’s ‘Periphery Doctrine,’ in which the Jewish state sought to offset the rejection it experienced from neighboring Arab regimes through alliances with the non-Arab states ringing the Arab world–Turkey, Ethiopia, Iran–and with minorities inside the Arab world like the Kurds and the Maronites. This policy hasn’t had a very good run. It was only a few days ago at Foreign Policy that Leon Hadar actually wrote its obituary.Israel has systematically lost its friends at the periphery–Iran, Ethiopia and now Turkey. Its adventures and attempts at kingmaking in Lebanon ended with tens of thousands of civilians killed, the Maronites politically emasculated, a decades-long occupation and war which traumatized its army, the politicization and militarization of the Lebanese Shi’ite community and the emergence of Hizbullah. Very recent history has shown Israel’s supporters in the US reacting against Turkey with the hurt and anger of a scorned lover: Goldberg himself stated with perverse glee

“I hope to be blogging more about Turkey’s disgraceful treatment of its Kurdish citizens!”

Mark Arax, among others, has documented the shameful, transparently expedient, volte face that the Israel Lobby took on the issue of the Armenian Genocide post-Flotilla.

One wonders how long this Kurdish-Zionist connection will last. When it does collapse, will Goldberg suddenly look forward to blogging about the treatment of Christian minorities by Kurds in Turkey (which is not good)? Or will other Zionist apologists suddenly discover that it was Kurds who did much of the actual killing on the ground in the Armenian Genocide and not Turks?

Hamas has rejected a prisoner swap proposal by the Israeli premier as deceitful, saying the movement wants the release of all the prisoners it has named in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a live address on Thursday said that Tel Aviv was willing to release 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit.

Shalit was arrested by Palestinian fighters in a cross border operation in June 2006, after he had infiltrated into Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu said he has agreed to the German mediation, which called for the release of 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Shalit, adding that he was “ready for immediate implementation.”

The hawkish prime minister said, however, that Israel would not meet any demand from Hamas, which has disclosed the list of 1,000 prisoners it wants released.

Netanyahu said he would not agree to the release of some 450 high-profile prisoners because they “will greatly strengthen Hamas’s leadership.”

Hamas, in response, said it was important as to who would be released and not how many. “Netanyahu is trying to delude Israeli public opinion and deceive the people,” said Ayman Taha, a senior Hamas spokesman.

In the past negotiations, Taha said, Israel had rejected most of those named by Hamas it wants released.

Amidst a grassroots uproar over funding for the military, the nuclear power industry has again forced $9 billion in loan guarantees onto an “emergency” war appropriations bill for Afghanistan and Iraq.

Last month the Southern Company officially accepted $8.33 billion in federal loan guarantees to build two new reactors at the Vogtle site in Georgia. Georgia regulators are allowing ratepayers to be charged for construction as it proceeds.

Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) has linked war spending to cutbacks on salaries for teachers, among other things. He and others are believed to be opposed to using the bill as a vehicle to foist liability for new reactor construction onto the ratepayers.

Committee members are listed below. They can be reached via (202)224-3121. Call them NOW!

Russia’s refusal to deliver S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran means Tehran could turn to China as its main arms supplier, depriving Moscow of a serious source of revenue, a Russian daily suggested on Wednesday.

Moscow said in mid-June it would freeze the delivery of S-300 air-defense systems following a new round of UN sanctions imposed on Tehran on June 9. Security Council Resolution 1929 imposed a fourth set of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, including tougher financial controls and an expanded arms embargo.

According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russia’s losses will amount to the value of the contract plus penalties for breach of contract.

The S-300 contract is worth some $800 million, while Russian experts estimate the penalty for breach of contract at $400 million.

Furthermore, Iran could refuse to buy any more military products from Russia, leading to an estimated loss of $300 million to $500 million a year.

In another indication of a trend that should be worrying to Moscow, experts pointed to Iran’s decision to effectively end cooperation with Russia in the civil aviation sector.

Earlier in June, Iran banned its airlines from using Russian-built Tu-154 airliners on domestic and international routes. In addition, there have been reports of the imminent deportation of Russian pilots because the Islamic Republic already has “enough qualified flight personnel.”

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi warned on June 22 that Russia would be responsible for the consequences of its failure to deliver S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Iran.

Russia initially said the delivery of S-300 systems to Iran would not be affected by the new UN sanctions since they are not included in the UN Register of Conventional Arms, but experts from the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation concluded the missiles did come under the new set of sanctions.

A Kremlin source echoed that opinion on June 11, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was up to the president to make the final decision.

Moscow signed a contract on supplying Iran with at least five S-300 systems in December 2005, but nothing has been delivered. The United States and Israel have urged Russia not to fulfill the contract.

The advanced version of the S-300 missile system, called S-300PMU1, has a range of over 150 kilometers (over 100 miles) and can intercept ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes, making it effective in warding off airstrikes.

SAN FRANCISCO — Israel has “found” at least 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Mediterranean, a good portion of which “belongs” to Gaza and Lebanon.

Israel says, in effect, “Screw that.”

“The gas and oil is ours to take and sell. We are the strongest militarily in the area and have global thermonuclear weapons – lots of them. Get used to it.” [1]

Israel, with the Israel Defense Forces as enforcers and guards will suck the gas and oil out of the ground and sell it as fast as they can, from the edges, to steal it away from their neighbors — the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

That will depress world natural gas prices worldwide and kill the plans of the major oil companies, who are buying up natural gas companies.

The major oil companies are very anxious to raise prices a little bit on natural gas so they can also raise prices on gasoline. The two fuels have always been closely tied to each other.

The US government is easily pushed around by Israeli hardball politics; but, the majors are not, not at all.

The majors will want to restrict production of natural gas to raise prices.

Israel will want to dump 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over a period of a few years on the world natural gas market as fast as they can to keep it from their enemies, the Lebanese and the Palestinians. Both cannot happen at the same time.

My bet is that Israel will win against the major oil companies and natural gas prices will be depressed for several years.

Why? Simple. Israel, its intelligence agency, the Mossad, and their bank cronies have more money to buy politicians and US government “policy” than the major oil companies do.

Bob Nichols is a Project Censored Award winner, a correspondent for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and a frequent contributor to various online publications. He reports on war, politics and the two nuclear weapons labs in the Bay Area. Nichols is writing a book based on 20 years of nuclear war in Central Asia. He is a former employee of an Army Ammunition Plant. You are encouraged to write Nichols at duweapons@gmail.com.

Israeli Minister of Trade, Industry and Labor, Binyamin Ben-Elezier

Israeli Minister of Trade, Industry and Labor, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, says the world is tired of Israel and that Israel, rather than the Gaza Strip, is actually blockaded.

“We’re not the ones maintaining a blockade. We’re blockaded, utterly isolated. We’re in a situation where the world is tired of us,” the Jewish Daily quoted Ben-Elezier as saying in an interview in the Yediot Ahronot Friday supplement.

“They’re tired of hearing our explanations, of showing empathy for our troubles, even if they’re real troubles. (The world is) Tired of understanding us. This business just isn’t working anymore. After 43 years, nobody wants to hear any more explanations about why this occupation is continuing and how we have nobody to talk to.” Elezier continued.

Born in 1936 in Basra in southern Iraq, Binyamin “Fuad” Ben-Eliezer is the senior leader of the Labor Party’s hawkish wing, a tough-as-nails ex-general and currently the party’s grand old man.

Book Review

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 05/23/2019

This week Amazon pulled a controversial book being sold through its website after Israeli media led an outcry against it, charging the US retail giant with hosting Hezbollah propaganda containing incitement to violence against Israelis written by the group’s second in command.

“Hezbollah: The Story from Within” was published in 2010 by Naim Qassem, the deputy head of Hezbollah, who is a designated international terrorist by the United States. The rare “insider account” of Iran-backed Hezbollah has been translated into several languages and had reportedly long been available in English through Amazon.com.

According to the Israeli national Hebrew-language daily newspaper Maariv, “a reporter found that the English edition of the book was being offered for sale on the Amazon site,” and was alarmed at “a clear instance of breaking sanctions and helping to finance terrorism” on the part of Amazon.

“A Maariv reporter contacted Amazon with findings in the book and Amazon subsequently decided to immediately remove the book from its sales sites in the United States and around the world,” a rough English translation of the Maarivstory said. The Hebrew-language report said the book was filled with anti-Semitic statements and questioned Israel’s right to exit. … continue

Aletho News Original Content

By Aletho News | January 9, 2012

This article will examine some of the connections between the US and UK National Security apparatus and the appearance of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory beginning after the accident at Three Mile Island. … continue

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